Technical Field
This disclosure relates generally to computer processing and more specifically to clock routing techniques in processors with both pipelined and non-pipelined circuitry.
Description of the Related Art
Graphics processing units (GPUs) typically operate on large amounts of graphics data in parallel using multiple execution pipelines or shaders. Modern GPUs are becoming more and more programmable, with less computation done in fixed-function hardware and more computation done using programmable shaders that execute graphics instructions from application developers. Execution of such instructions may consume considerable power. This may be problematic in mobile graphics applications where a battery is the power source.
Clock signals typically consume significant power, e.g., because they are usually the most active lines in a processing unit. Decreasing the length of clock routing pathways may reduce power consumption. However, pipelined processors typically rely on clock signals to time transfer of data between pipeline stages and clock lines are typically routed throughout the pipeline. In the GPU context, programmable shaders often include large numbers of graphics processing pipelines.